This game was just amazing, great story, great characters, great voice acting like pretty much 95% of things in this game are amazing
the only like annoyingly bad thing ive noticed were some graphical glitches no matter what settings i chose
but overall this was a 10/10 for me
ive played most rgg games and this one is top 3 for sure

Judgment is a great spin-off of the Yakuza series. Mechanically, it’s like the other Yakuza games, but with a standalone story in the same universe.
The main premise is that you’re playing as Yagami, a private detective, trying to uncover the truth behind a series of murders. It takes place in Kamurocho, the staple location of the Yakuza series, a fictional Tokyo district.
Now, I have to be honest. I’d played all Yakuza games up until Judgment was released, and I wasn’t impressed at first. Many people say that Judgment is as good as Yakuza 0, but that simply isn’t the case.
There’s a decent amount of side content, typical of the Yakuza series, but I didn’t find it great. The minigame selection is good (no karaoke though), but the side cases were average. Some were pretty good though. These are complemented with a friends mechanic, which makes the city feel more organic. But they’re basically like side cases—most are average, with a few that stand out.
The combat is alright. There are 2 styles, but one of them feels underpowered. There’s a decent amount of agility to combat, but it wasn’t as fluid as I expected. Still, it’s good compared to most Yakuza games.
Being a detective game, there are mechanics like searching and tailing, but I wasn’t a fan of those—especially tailing. And there’s more focus on these than on combat, which makes sense for the theme, but wasn’t something I enjoyed much.
And even the story, which is definitely the best part of the game, was good but nothing special at first. There were a lot of those detective mechanics I wasn’t fond of, and some pacing issues, where certain side cases unrelated to the main story were actually required to progress.
All this was at first. The game was good, don’t get me wrong, I just didn’t see all the hype. But eventually, it started to get better. The story gets some big developments, and then I was hooked. And it only gets better. The story is superb, with an amazing cast of characters—one of the best in the series.
Not only that, the story added more combat, even including long sections, a staple of the series as well. With a kickass soundtrack to boot, which is pretty good in general.
If you’re playing through the entire franchise, you can play Judgment at any point, since it’s completely self-contained. But if I had to make a recommendation, I’d say after Yakuza 6, because Judgment takes place after that chronologically, and it comes after concluding Kiryu’s saga.
It’s also a great entry point into the series, and a great way to experience the Yakuza universe without diving into the mainline games, since they can be overwhelming at this point. And it’s still great even if you just want to play a good detective game.
So, Judgment is an easy recommendation regardless of your familiarity with the Yakuza series. It’s a good game overall with a great story. Still, better if you grab it on sale.

Tiger Drop cannot negate all the damage that following things did to my soul: The constant ambushes from the Keihin gang, the ridiculous amount of tailing missions that involve NPCs walking around in circles for what feels like an eternity, and the times in the main story that info gets repeated to you in long dialogue dumps. HOWEVER, all of these things are small issues if you are willing to push through them. This game has dialogue and a cast of characters that, I dare say, has yet to be matched for me across all the RGG games I've played, even among the mainline Yakuza games. I strongly hope RGG continues to pursue games like Judgment that are clearly passion projects for them.